- "Dear Sir, I hope this letter finds you in good health..."
- — James Reynolds in Say No To This and We Know
James Reynolds is a character in Hamilton whose appearance is in "Say No To This", when he threatens Hamilton that he will tell Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (Hamilton's wife) about his affair with Maria Reynolds, unless Hamilton accepted the bribe, "The Reynolds Pamphlet", where he only tips his hat and walks off stage, and “We Know”, re-reading the letter he sent to Hamilton in “Say No To This.”
History[]
Much of James Reynolds's early years are unknown. Reynolds himself appeared in Alexander Hamilton's life after the Hamilton-Reynolds Affair, a political scandal around the time of the presidencies of George Washington and John Adams, during which time Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton had a one-year affair with Maria Reynolds. Reynolds, angered at his wife's disloyalty despite his own toward Maria, forced Hamilton to pay him blackmail money of around a thousand dollars to keep it in secrecy, or threatened to tell Hamilton's wife, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, who was oblivious to the events.
After James Reynolds threatened to implicate him in his own corrupt scheme involving unpaid bank wages intended for Revolutionary War veterans, Hamilton was forced to admit to the affair publicly to save his political reputation.
